The NY Times has an interesting story about a Missouri Democrat's attempt to bring her party's activist base home to the notion that the state is too conservative for the hard-line stance of the Democratic Party.
It went about as you might expect - being right is more important to the progressives than actually winning elections.
The pro-life Democrat:
She worried that the Democratic Party had moved too far left on abortion. Gone were the days when the party, under President Bill Clinton, called for abortion to be “safe, legal and rare.” She also noticed fellow Democrats showing contempt for her when they learned her stance on abortion.
...
On June 30, when dozens of Democratic State Committee members gathered in a university conference room in Jefferson City to vote on the new platform, Ms. Barry nervously introduced her plank. It said that the party recognized “the diversity of views” on abortion and “we welcome into our ranks all Missourians who may hold different positions on this issue.”
(Full text is here.)
The pro-choice pushback:
“My stomach dropped,” said Ms. Merritt, who had agreed to join the committee after the party’s steep losses of 2016, thinking she needed to do more than criticize from the sidelines.
In her view, Missouri Democrats needed more progressive politics, not less.
“I don’t understand Democrats who quote Truman and F.D.R. and then act like they are terrified to run as an actual Democrat,” said Ms. Merritt, 45, who lives in St. Louis. “You have to believe in something in order for somebody to believe in you. You can’t be such a watered-down thing.”
The fight over abortion in the party, she said, epitomized that. So she sprang into action, talking on Facebook and Twitter with hundreds of angry progressives, some of whom were threatening to stop their donations, calling her fellow committee members, and ultimately the party’s chairman.
“I felt horrified that someone would associate me with that bizarre, regressive anti-woman language,” she said.
The party was trying to placate people who opposed abortion at the very moment that abortion was most under threat, Ms. Merritt said. Days before the vote, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy had announced his retirement and the court had backed anti-abortion pregnancy centers. Missouri, one of the most restrictive states in the country, is now down to one abortion clinic.
“The last thing we needed was for that language to linger,” she said of the plank. “It was a foul stench that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later.”
"Foul stench". Let's pencil her in as "Maybe not open for a calm discussion".
Finally, words of wisdom from an older Democrat about the benefits of compromising:
That is simply savvy politics [referring to Sen. McCaskill ducking the issue during her campaign], said Christopher Kelly, a retired judge from Columbia who served nine terms in the Legislature, several with Ms. McCaskill. He said Ms. McCaskill has a near perfect Democratic voting record on abortion, and believes the struggle points to a larger problem among young progressives.
“They operate in this fantasy,” he said, “that we’re going to have a political renaissance or enlightenment, where everyone is going to decide that their ideas — the ideas of the lefties — are now their ideas.”
He added: “You will not win seats, because even though people might agree with you on some of the issues, you will scare them away. You will seem alien to them.”
He said history does not support the claim that more anti-abortion Democrats in the Legislature translates to less abortion rights. Many of the restrictions have come more recently, he said, since Republicans have gained the majority.
“When you become contemptuous of conservative Democrats, you promote the election of their opponents,” said Mr. Kelly, who believes it was a mistake to scrap Ms. Barry’s plank. “And their opponents are 100 percent worse for the environment, 100 percent worse for working people, 100 percent worse for L.G.B.T. people, for women, for black people, for immigrants.”
I mean, duh. But not for the progressive highlighted here, who gets the last word:
Ms. Merritt admits that some districts may be difficult for Democrats to win, but that is partly because the party has not really tried to persuade people. Candidates need to seize the chance this fall to teach people why Democratic ideas are better, she said.
“I believe 110 percent that if we run on full-throated, unapologetic progressive politics, we will win,” she said.
She added: “At a certain point, when you compromise your values, you are not winning. How far are we going to bend over before we tumble and fall?”
You keep on believing, sweetie. Trump will keep on winning.
The progressives would rather try to amend the Constitution and pack the courts rather than moderate their positions on abortion, guns and immigration. And they will continue to struggle in flyover country. But they'll raise lots of Hollywood money!
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